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We’re already hearing the post-midterm narratives take shape. One of the most prominent is an effort to try to force Democrats to choose between lowering costs or investigating the Trump administration. I joined Keleigh Beeson on NewsNation from Crooked Con in D.C. on Saturday and made the case that it’s a false choice.
Voters told us so themselves. In the polls, the exit polls, and at more than 100,000 doors knocked by Common Power, voters named two main problems: costs and corruption. Corruption came up as a top issue again and again. These issues are intertwined, so Democrats have to put forward solutions that push both affordability and accountability. They can walk and chew gum at the same time.
The party seems to know it. At Crooked Con, I heard Democrats from across the ideological spectrum make the same case. Lawmakers kept repeating that affordability and accountability are tied together. Much of the party is on the same page and very aware that voters gave Democrats a mandate to do both. And President Trump just reminded the country why placing a check on him is so important.
Stephen Miller embodies Trump’s most depraved impulses, the same impulses the country just repudiated. The midterms were in part a rejection of Trump’s immigration crackdown, and every gain he made with Latino voters is gone. If Trump had heard anything from this election, he would have fired Miller. Instead, he just made him Chief of Staff. At Crooked Con, incoming House Oversight Chair Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said Miller is number one on his investigations list.
Accountability is coming. So is the work of lowering costs.
Republicans spent the campaign arguing that beyond ending tariffs and opposing the war, Democrats were light on details for bringing down costs. I was asked what Democrats can do, and I laid out a blueprint of what they could immediately pursue.
Democrats can work to restore the enhanced ACA subsidies that Trump and Republicans ended before spending billions on a fruitless war in Iran. They can push to undo the Medicaid cuts. With potentially 56 Senate seats and more than 250 in the House, they also have leverage to pull Republicans toward veto-proof majorities on some of this. I expect the new majority to pursue a repeal of Trump’s most corrosive tariffs as one of its first policy initiatives.
Affordability and accountability meet again on Trump’s Iran war. Oil, gas, and diesel prices are all up because of the war, and he has been a total failure at negotiating us out of it. That’s why I think war powers resolutions could move quickly, alongside anti-tariff legislation and accountability measures.
Democrats won’t get everything passed with Trump holding the veto pen. But they can showcase their priorities and use the appropriations process to advance them without Trump’s rubber stamp.
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